Simple Pleasures
by Measured
Summary: A Tezuka/Fuji arc of short fics in the same universe. Ninth part: "I'm too old for birthday parties," Tezuka said.
1. Cotton Sheets

Simple Pleasures

"Simple pleasures are the last refuge of the complex"

_-Oscar Wilde _

_a TezukaFuji ficverse of short fics in the same universe of a fluffier nature (yet striving to be in-character as well) established relationship, to a point.  
_

_Written when there was a deluge of angsty-break-up-y TezukaFuji fics without happy endings, thus I threatened and threatened to do this so I did (heart)  
_

_part one:_

_Cotton Sheets._

Fuji isn't a morning person.

Prince of Tennis, Tezuka/Fuji, around PG-ish, no real warnings or spoilers

* * *

--- 

Tezuka always sets the clock before sleeping, it is a habit so worn into his hands that it is done without thinking, a routine melded into daily life like so many other things, it is done without a thought that his life is different now.

It is a useless thing, for he always wakes up precisely fifteen minutes before it would be set to ring, and carefully defuses it like a timebomb waiting to go off.

He slinks out of bed, hands blindly searching for his glasses, oh, there they are. The thin frames shudder slightly as he places them over the bridge of his angular nose. The world blurs for a moment, the solidifies, focuses.

Fuji is not a morning person. It is better for the world and his own sanity if Fuji is allowed a few extra hours.

Tezuka slumps back and catches a few extra hours of rest.

---

Fuji isn't a morning person. Or so he likes Tezuka to think.

He always wakes up exactly fifteen minutes before Tezuka and resets the clock, just for a suppressed laugh into the pillow, and to have the pleasure of watching Tezuka wake up fifteen minutes later and blindly reach for the clock. Just to watch admiringly as he 'resets' the clock.

Fuji thinks that Tezuka is chivalrous for doing such a thing, but it's probably just a mixture of self-preservation and well honed intuition.

As Tezuka shifts in bed, supposedly for Fuji's comfort, Fuji smiles into his pillow while feigning sleep.

Fuji doesn't actually mind mornings, but doesn't like them half as much as he likes convincing Tezuka that he doesn't.

---

Tezuka isn't a morning person.

Tezuka knows Fuji doesn't mind mornings, he knows Fuji is merely playing another game, but he also knows that this one is harmless compared to what Fuji could do.

He likes the scent of cotton sheets and the sight of Fuji's pale skin laid out on the only slightly paler fitted sheets.

He likes the sound of Fuji's suppressed laugh and the hint of a salacious grin pressed into folds of a curled pillow.

And yes, he even likes the few extra hours of sleep, the extra warm of Fuji curled up beside him.


	2. Simple Pleasures

Simple Pleasures

It's the simple things in life that matter most. PG

A/N: for ketchupblood on her birthday. Also, exactly one year since I upped this. Hopefully I'll get around to updating sooner next time.

* * *

  


Fuji loves the way Tezuka accentuates the last syllable of his name as if he can't bear to stop saying it. Like a teenager kissing that last kiss goodnight or the feeling of fingers slowly releasing hold, just that one breath held between his teeth and let free.

It's something he can claim as his, in the so many parts of Tezuka that are the team's, the public's, the world's.

Of all their complexities, it's the simple things Fuji loves the most. A sly touch of skin when the crowds are near, a quiet weekend when there is no one else and Tezuka is his alone. They come far less than Fuji wishes, but he is patient when it comes to Tezuka.

When Tezuka is half the world away, Fuji holds the memories dear until he can almost feel him, taste him, see him.

Of all the memories, it is the simplest, the most mundane that he misses the most about Tezuka.


	3. Vocabulary

Vocabulary

Fuji expands Tezuka's lexicon. PG-13

Words included: Pillar, (column), salacious, copulation

Admittedly, salacious and Syuuusuke aren't an exact match, but it was half joking.

* * *

Tezuka subscribes to the appropriate papers. Business, news; there is nothing superfluous about him. He is one of the few who still actually reads newspaper, liking the feel of the paper in his hands, solid, unfailing. He has always preferred the tangible to intangible.

Fuji is the opposite. He always asks his father to bring back issues of old newspapers and magazines for him. The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Post. While his English is fine, Fuji makes his own translations that range from humorous to bizarre. He relates them to Tezuka during tea. Sometimes Fuji could swear he saw the hint of a smile, though he's yet to progress to making Tezuka choke on his tea with laughter.

When he has finished with this game, Fuji moves on to other prospects. He enjoys sudoku and even the odd crossword puzzle. His fights against them are epic, drawn out battles, and Tezuka thought that if Fuji ever brought that drive to the tennis court, he could easily take Wimbledon.

But that doesn't mean he takes them alone.

"Upright, cone shaped, to support – six letters."

"Pillar," Tezuka says.

Fuji gnaws on the edge of the pen thoughtfully. (It always irks Tezuka that Fuji didn't use pencils on the crossword, but then, Fuji hates the sound of pencils.)

"Column, actually. Close, isn't it?"

"Hmm." Tezuka returns to drinking his tea.

A few minutes pass as Fuji searches over the paper again.

"Begins with S, 'suggestive or tending to moral looseness; given to lust."

"Syuusuke," Tezuka says.

Fuji taps the pen against Tezuka's arm and chuckles.

"Is that a suggestion, Tezuka?" Fuji laughs.

Tezuka doesn't answer, but pays attention to the paper that Fuji has previously kept hidden. The boxes are covered in scrawls of Fuji's neat handwriting. He has solved them long ago.

"Next one, C—"

"You've already finished," Tezuka says.

"No, there's one more," Fuji says, and Tezuka can just hear the mischievousness in his voice.

"A ten letter word, begins with C."

"Hmph," Tezuka says.

"Maybe you can help me solve this one elsewhere, hmm?" Fuji smiles.

Tezuka drinks the last bit of his tea in one gulp and slowly, methodically puts it in the sink. He doesn't wash it however, instead leaving it there for latter attention.

Fuji smiles, that one little misstep revealed all.

"Eager, Tezuka?"

Tezuka doesn't reply, he always preferred actions to words.

It was what Fuji liked best about him.


	4. Lightning

Lightning

Fuji likes storms. PG.

A/N: for Becky & Verblith. Part of the alphabet meme I was doing as well (L is for Lightning) It demanded to be part of this universe too.

* * *

Fuji likes storms.

He sits with windows open, inhaling the cool air. His tea has become lukewarm, but he takes no notice, for his gaze is fixed elsewhere. There is a fascination in the thunder, the shock, the power of the winds. Rain mesmerizes him, moisture spattering on the sides of the window.

For some, rain brings unhappiness, but to him, Rain simply brings memories.

He remembers it all. Fuji has never been frightened by the thunder; even when Yuuta was very young and clung to him, shuddering at each crashing wave of thunder, Fuji simply watched on. He stroked Yuuta's bristly, peach-fluff hair until Yuuta would fall asleep on him. He was heavy and warm, and it mixed between comfort and discomfort, like food a bit too spicy.

Yuuta soon outgrew that stage, and even if Fuji teased him, he refused to remember those times. Fuji missed them, like all the times before, when Yuuta had looked up to him, held on to his hand, gripping tightly.

Somewhere along the line, Yuuta let go.

* * *

Fuji shifts now, the is cold, he drinks it in one gulp.

He remembers how Tezuka was so close and yet miles away. How his own skin should've been cold from the rain, yet it was heated, burning. It was the storm he needed, white light exploding overhead. They took shelter after that, he could still feel Tezuka's anger, like the electricity in the air, how he was drawn and repelled, fascinated and angry at him.

It was the absence, when the sky was clear and bright that really struck Fuji. He missed the cool breeze, the _frenshness_ that always accompanied the storms; the scent of rain, Yumiko always said.

He missed Tezuka, he hadn't realized it until then.

* * *

The rain has almost stopped now. Fuji considers it from his seat. One last burst, and it will calm to a slight drizzle.

Tezuka is late, but Fuji is not particularly angry at this. Meetings often run long, or perhaps the storm itself had kept Tezuka from leaving.

Little ever keeps Tezuka back, but his overly cautious steak did make some things take longer than needed. Fuji smiles, that over cautiousness always gave him so many aspects to tease, to test, to slowly wear away at, rain to soil.

Even the rains will wear the mountains down, bit by bit. It might take many years, but eventually, _eventually_.

Not an hour later, Fuji hears keys jangling at the door. He turns, and there Tezuka is, only mildly late and rainsoaked from head to soggy feet.

"You're home," Fuji says.

He closes the distance fast, but silent, catlike in his movements.

Fuji leans up and slips fingers through Tezuka's damp hair.

"How careless," Fuji says with a wry smile.

He removes Tezuka's steamed, droplet spattered glasses and cleans them on his shirt. A smile comes to his lips, mischievous, and before he gives the glasses back, he steals a kiss.

Tezuka tastes like rain.


	5. Viscera

Viscera

summary: Fuji never has tired of photographing Tezuka, and he knows he never will. PG-13

A/N: Simple Pleasures update, why not. More sleeping, hee. Done for 31 days at lj, the theme 'visceral love'.

* * *

Fuji slips out of bed. The covers feel warm, comfortable; like a lover's touch. He doesn't want to leave them, and yet, the light source is just right at this hour. Fuji doesn't like to let such opportunities slide.

Tezuka's hair is always in a state of perpetual bedhead. Fuji can't help but love the fact that Tezuka unintentionally always looks like he's just had some very good sex, not that his expression would convey that. (Though, with Fuji around, that description is very apt. )

Fuji is ever prepared. He always keeps his camera near in cases like this.

While other photographers update for the most streamlined kinds of cameras out there, Fuji picks older, vintage types. This camera is older than he is, finding film for it is an adventure in itself, for this kind of obscure film is about as common as seeing Tezuka smile.

Fuji tiptoes over the bare wooden floor, goosebumps prickle over his flesh; the morning air is chilly. He rubs his arms. He misses the warmth, the feel of Tezuka's bare skin. But soon enough he will return.

He aims the camera, Tezuka looks so far away in this old, tiny viewfinder.

Poking out from the sheets is a line of shoulder, bare skin. The shutter clicks, _loud._

Fuji has always liked the sound of the shutter, loud as it is. He mentally notes to find a quieter one for morning usage.

He notices a grimace, a bit of tension on Tezuka's face. He has to suppress a giggle. Tezuka feigning sleep? Maybe Tezuka's starting to pick up on his habits after all.

No one sees these pictures, they are his alone. Fuji loves the way the light splays over Tezuka, the abstractness of Tezuka sleeping, feign-sleep as it is. Bone and muscle and skin, every single inch of Tezuka, he loves it all.

Fuji never has tired of photographing Tezuka, and he knows he never will.

After around half a roll, Fuji sets the camera aside and tiptoes back into bed.

"Are you finished?" Tezuka mutters sleepily.

"For now," Fuji replies as he settles in closer.

"For now."


	6. Dual Perspective

Dual Perspective

[Fuji reminds him in strange ways.]

Merry Christmas, Peachy milktea!

**.**

It is enough that he had to share Tezuka with the world. Tezuka kept his personal life ironclad and far be it from being offended, Fuji was amused by being Tezuka's 'secret lover.' There were so many ways to play with this and remind Tezuka of who he answered to. Once he wrote a note so maudlin, trite and banal that he had to step back and admire how out-of-character it would be for him to send such a thing. Fuji slipped it in Tezuka's bag, along with a kiss mark from a borrowed tube of ruby-red lipstick.

And just to finish this grand farce off, he left a mark on Tezuka's best shirt just before he was to leave. Fuji wondered if it might somehow escape Tezuka's eye, if business would win over his attention long enough for smirking coworkers to catch sight of the lipstick marks on Tezuka's collar.

But what had meant to be an idle game turned far more amusing than Fuji had first imagined. He started sending lunches from _Fujiko_ Once he even went so far as to buy a black lace thong simply to leave it at the very top of Tezuka's suitcase.

But when Tezuka returned, Fuji couldn't help but bring up the stained, now ruined lip marked shirt to Tezuka's attention.

"What's this?" Fuji said "Could it be you're having an affair?"

"That's _you_," Tezuka said. "And don't deny it, I recognize your handwriting. And your sister's perfume "

"I suppose I have to commend you on your taste in lovers," Fuji said.

He set the shirt aside, over top an unused chair.

Tezuka sighed in annoyance. "_Fuji_."

Fuji chuckled. He leaned close and whispered against Tezuka's ear _I just wanted to remind you lest you forget_.

"I don't forget," Tezuka said dryly.

"A wise man once told me that one can never be too careful. Or I should say he said to refrain from being 'careless'."

"I'll keep that in mind," Tezuka said.

"Good," Fuji said.

After that the Fuji found uses for lipstick and black lacy underwear were far less joking and far more pleasing to Tezuka.


	7. Wednesday

Wednesday

[The beautiful mundane]

Again, for peachy milktea for Christmas.

**.**

Fuji sips at his coffee, lingering over the morning newspaper which he always filches from Tezuka, even though he just reads the personals and comics while Tezuka reads it cover to cover, in the space of less than an hour. He enjoys the morning hours, the quiet before the day will rip them apart. It is this destruction and reformation and noise and peace that he clings to.

The mundane is a precious thing when Tezuka will inevitably be sent overseas for months and years and maybe decades but actually just weeks. It is only in his absence that these seconds turn to hours and these hours to days.

Fuji fills these days with workshops and activities and lessons of foreign languages. He studies French and German and mixes pronouns and verbs and tenses while watching his sister's children without even her asking. Fuji is quieter in these days that give him too much time for thinking. They aren't new lovers anymore, Fuji thinks he should certainly not be acting like some forlorn wife left for the first time. And yet, there is a lack when Tezuka is gone. The silence is oppressive and he seeks to fill it with whatever means possible.

Sometimes Fuji laughs at himself and mutters _you're pining like some schoolgirl_ and how true it is. He misses discussing business that only interests him because it is connected to Tezuka, he misses showing Tezuka his snapshots first and almost conversations over morning coffee. He misses the light that reflects off of Tezuka's glasses and Tezuka's failure at conversations. Most of all, he misses Tezuka.

But the world falls into focus when Tezuka returns and that frantic attempt to fill the empty space is no longer necessary. For it has already been filled again.


	8. Whim

Whim

[On weddings, prison and world domination averted by just a thread]

Fuji placed the phone back on the cradle. He still kept around an archaic type just as he kept around a phonograph in the house. The only things he didn't take for antiques were the flat-screen TV and the computer.

"That was Takasan," Fuji said. "His third child is a girl. Her name is Haruko."

Tezuka looked up and _hmmed_. Fuji plopped down on the couch beside him. The news was white noise disasters beyond them.

"Momo is married two years now, Kaidoh's a newlywed. It really makes one think... Do you ever wonder it was like if you'd married and had children?"

"I'd have to push you out of bed to get a wife," Tezuka deadpanned. "That would only end in a murder trial."

"You say that like I'd get caught," Fuji said smugly.

"Then from prison you would topple every drug lord and mafioso from the inside, so no. I haven't."

Fuji threw his arms around Tezuka. "Oh Tezuka, don't worry. You'll always be my favorite prison bitch."

"_Fuji_," Tezuka said warningly.

But it was too late, Fuji had already tilted into his whimsical state and little would stop him from this train of thought.

"I wonder... Does that mean I'm your wife? Shall I be the mother of your children?"

"That's currently illegal in this land and scientifically impossible," Tezuka replied.

"That doesn't stop us from trying, eh?" Fuji said. "We could try all night..."

The news and world disasters were summarily forgotten. With that Tezuka did his best to prevent the destruction of the known world one night at a time.


	9. The Party After The Party

The Party After The Party

[Happy Birthday, Tezuka!]

**.**

Fuji had been somewhat secretive all that week, but then he was always secretive. It should have been simply of facet of Fuji, but the time he chose to be secretive, being three days before October 7th, also known as the day he was born was quite suspicious.

"I'm too old for birthday parties," Tezuka said.

"You're learning, Tezuka," Fuji said both impressed and fairly amused, "However it's already started and you'll just have to be surprised when the time comes."

Tezuka groaned. "Oh joy."

**.**

Perhaps it would've been a bit less obvious if Fuji hadn't sent him off to get a very particular kind of punch which he later found was only sold in one store in Chiba, which Fuji gave him very unique directions to (_by the red post, near the docks by the white house_)

But he did eventually return victorious. With some help from a childhood friend of Fuji's. It was already late by the time he opened the door. The hisses of "_Quiet, quiet!"_ only made it all the more obvious.

"Surprise!" came the chorus. All his old teammates were there. Even some of the ichinin and non regulars had showed up, and his coach. Echizen was taller, Inui was still in his lab coat. Oishi's hair had grown out, Eiji's was the same. Ryuzaki wore a red cocktail dress which she was way too old for, while Kaidoh looked the same, right down to the bandana, despite Tezuka hearing he'd gone into banking.

The decorations were particularly garish, being that it had been a collaboration between Fuji, who he suspected was either color-blind or secretly trying to get Tezuka to rip his horrid 80s reject clothes off, and Eiji who loved bright things even if putting them together caused seizures.

"We have a hat for you," Fuji said.

He stood on tiptoe to put on a ridiculous hat, which was just as eye burning as the decor. Tezuka glowered.

"Before we eat, we've got to let him open his presents," Fuji said.

"But Fuji, I'm starving," Eiji whined.

"Grab a bit of sushi to munch while Tezuka opens them, then."

The presents were fairly straightforward. Inui had helped with Tezuka's favorites from his precious data, so plenty of them provided that he'd not be wanting for spare rackets, or oolong tea. Eiji had gone a different way, however with teddy bear socks with pom-poms on them. Fuji had liked Tezuka's expression so much upon opening that he took a picture. Of course Fuji was in charge of pictures, and of course he chose the most embarrassing positions and situations to save for later viewings.

"Now Tezuka, it's time for my present," Fuji said, his voice turning very sultry. He bent over, and all Tezuka's mind was filled with all the other birthdays, and deep down there was a fear that Fuji was adding exhibitionism, and possibly lapdancing to the list of birthday presents.

"Fuji, not here–!" Tezuka hissed.

"Maa, Tezuka, don't be so paranoid. I just got you some grip tape that you wanted. I knew you were low."

He leaned close, and pressed something against Tezuka's hand. Something soft, and fuzzy, as well as cold. He felt the outline of circles – handcuffs?

"Now, now... I wouldn't want anyone else to get the mental image of you in this..." Fuji whispered. He thrived in invading personal space so much that no one was surprised to see Fuji practically sitting in Tezuka's lap.

"Fuji..."

"Don't worry, Tezuka. Saeki spiked the punch with something really potent. I asked for presents first for a reason. You'll get your real present soon enough."

So _that_ was the wild goose chase Fuji had sent him in. Apparently all along it'd been a home blend made solely by Saeki and Fuji during one of the more eventful summers. It was proof that if Fuji and Saeki spent any more time with each other, the world would be in danger.

"I know for a fact that most of the team can't hold their alcohol, let alone something like this."

Two cups and Eiji was already drooping. Oishi was starry-eyed and Kaidoh was flushing. Possibly from Inui's attempt to dance the robot, with his own addition of robot grinding. Kaidoh might have been married, but a few drops of alcohol and it was back to high school again, complete with his very caring senpai.

"It won't be long at all, Tezuka..." He rubbed against Tezuka as he moved away, in a particular Fuji way which he always passed off as an accident. Tezuka took a long breath. Maybe this party wasn't quite so bad after all – or at least the after party looked promising.


End file.
